Unified access to resources

摘要

Architecture that provides a unified interface to access resources in different formats and in disparate resource locations for a process (e.g., consuming application). The unified interface is extensible such that users can add additional components to the unified interface to provide access to new resources and new resource references. The interface provides the capability to create a single comprehensive index of all available resources regardless of the resource format. Format-specific indexers are provided for the resources to find, enumerate, and process the resources into a structure suitable for processing by an indexing component into the index. A user can introduce new format-specific indexers for new resources and new resource references for processing by the indexing component into the index. The unified interface now provides access to the new resources and new resources references as well.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
obtaining first resources, wherein the first resources are associated with a plurality of resource formats, and wherein at least one of the first resources is a container resource; using a plurality of first format-specific indexers of an interface component, converting the first resources into an index structure and outputting the index structure to an indexing component, wherein each format-specific indexer of the plurality of format-specific indexers corresponds to a respective one of the resource formats; and responsive to the indexing component receiving the index structure, indexing the first resources into a resource index and storing the resource index in a memory; wherein the interface component is extensible to enable unified access to a second resource responsive to receiving a second format-specific indexer corresponding to the second resource.